Joan Leach

Professor Joan Leach (BA Hons, BSc, MA, PhD) is Director of the Australian National Centre for Public Awareness of Science at The Australian National University.

She is immediate past-President of Australian Science Communicators and Chair of the National Committee for History and Philosophy of Science at the Australian Academy of Science.

Her research centres on public engagement with science, medicine and technology and she has been active in the Australian government's recent initiatives toward ‘Inspiring Australia’. She is currently researching the role of popular science in the globalization of science since the 1960s, a project funded by the Australian Research Council. She has published extensively about science communication, including Rhetorical Questions of Health and Medicine, and was editor of the International journal, Social Epistemology .

Professor Leach has won numerous academic awards for her research and community engagement, including being a Science Journalism Laureate at Purdue University (USA). While remaining transfixed by science, she advocates for better science communication that critically examines the social impacts of science, technology and biomedicine.